10 replies to this topic

[seogreenie]

It's my understanding that meta tags are pretty much going the way of the dodo. Poor little guys, I'll miss 'em.

So, how do I know which keywords people are typing in to get to my site?

I've heard about web tracking systems that have loads of this kind of info. I checked out a few by doing my own web search but was confused by the enormous amount of data! Wow! I felt a bit like a secret agent. Like, I know everything about you, hehehe.... :halo:

Anyway, does anyone know of any user friendly types? And the secret agent stuff, is it really useful?

Thanks all!

[DanThies]

You have a lot of choices, but they really come down to three options:

• Running a stats program (like Webalizer or AWStats) on your own server
• Using a hosted stats service (like Hitbox or WebTrendsLive)
• Using an offline program to analyze your server logs. There are a lot of these. I like Surfstats, Mach5 Faststats, and Webtrends.

AWStats (which comes bundled with the WHM/CPanel web hosting solution) will tell you a lot.

To get into the details of which keywords and which search engine, you need to get a good offline log file analyzer. Some of the hosted services might provide this, but once you're committed to spending money you might as well buy a log file analyzer.

[Haystack]

seogreenie, Dan's advice is right on. However, a better question for you to be asking is, "what are my prospective web site visitors typing into search engines?" This is the information that will help you align you site's copy with the terms that really matter.

By analyzing the keywords used by people who've visited your site, you're simply finding out what terms your site currently ranks high for. This can be useful, but not as useful as the information mentioned above.

[SearchRank]

To add to what Ed (Haystack) said, you can use Wordtracker as well as Overture's Term Suggestion List. Type in search terms you think are relevant to your business and these tools will show you at what frequency those terms are being searched for as well as suggest others related to them.

Also, Inktomi and Alta Vista still index and use the meta description tag to form the description for li8stings in the SERPS so make sure to optimize those for each page as well in your SEO strategy.

[DanThies]

If you're trying to figure out what keywords you *should* target, you can do the research on systems like Wordtracker, or hire someone to do the work for you.

If it's a one-time or occasional thing, you're probably better off outsourcing this kind of work to someone who does keyword research all the time and actually enjoys it.

If you're going to do keyword research all the time, you probably want to do your homework and learn the Wordtracker system. If you're going to need keyword research all the time, but hate Wordtracker or have better ways to spend your time, that's another good reason to outsource.

[Randy]

In addition to the excellent answers above, here's another quickie idea to identify phrases people are searching for, especially if you're working with an already existing site.

If the site is of sufficient size and lends itself well to having (internal) Search Site capabilities, find and use one which will save and/or email what people search for on your site. Chances are they're using pretty similar phrases to search for you in the first place. So if you keep seeing the same basic searches come down the pike you may be able to come up with other phrases easily.

Where I use something like this (being too lazy to install it and update it on every site so far) I've use it as much for a Visitor Input tool as a Site Usability tool. Nothing like having your visitors do the hard work for you. You might find yourself amazed at the secondary phrases you can optmize just a bit for and pick up significant conversions.

[ventura]

what programs do a reverse lookup on keywords that people are typing in to get to your site?

[domokun]

what programs do a reverse lookup on keywords that people are typing in to get to your site?

its all in your log files.

[dbmasters]

I use an app called WebCEO, and it has a little tool that you can type in a word, submit it, and it will hit it's database and spit back a list of queries in which that word is included in, and in the order of how often the phrases are used based on their research.

For example, I have a home recording website, I enter "recording" it spits back:

audio recording
music record
cd recording
recording court record
recording vocals

etc...then go through the list, starting at the most common and see which applies to your site...it's really interesting results sometimes and has help me find queries I wouldn't have thought of myself...

Just food for thought.

[JamesW]

Seogreenie

In my opinion your tracker will depend on the type of website that you are looking to use it on.

For a few of my smaller websites I tend to use Statcounter (statcounter.com) which is also free to use, although some of the statistics, such as 'Came From' and 'Keyword' are limited to the last 100 visits.

However I think that Statcounter are not processing new applications right now because their servers have reached full capapcity. If you check back in February it should be back to normal.

Cheers

James

[prophecy]

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